Zakat and Fasting: Rules and Conditions

Fath al-Qadir treats zakah and sawm (fasting) in chapters that demonstrate Ibn al-Humam's characteristic ability to combine precise legal formulation with deep engagement with the Prophetic traditions that underpin each ruling.

zakah is the third pillar of Islam — an obligatory annual levy on wealth that has reached the nisab (minimum threshold) and remained in the owner's possession for a full lunar year (hawl). The legal basis for zakah rests on explicit Quranic commands (Surah at-Tawbah 9:60 and others) and a vast body of hadith literature. Ibn al-Humam opens by establishing that zakah is a right of the poor upon the wealth of the rich, not a voluntary charity, and that its deliberate withholding is a grave sin.

In the Hanafi school, the categories of zakatable wealth include: gold, silver (and by extension paper currency and monetary instruments), merchandise intended for trade, livestock (camels, cattle, sheep), and certain agricultural produce. Ibn al-Humam examines the nisab for each category in detail. For gold, the nisab is twenty mithqals (approximately 85 grams); for silver, it is two hundred dirhams (approximately 595 grams). The rate for monetary wealth and trade goods is two and a half percent (one fortieth) of the total value.

A distinctive Hanafi position on zakah concerns the obligation: Hanafi scholars hold that zakah is obligatory on the poor as well as the rich, meaning any Muslim who possesses the nisab is obligated regardless of personal circumstances, with the caveat that debts may be deducted from zakatable assets. Ibn al-Humam explains this position and contrasts it with the Maliki and Shafi'i schools.

The eight categories of zakah recipients established by the Quran (Surah at-Tawbah 9:60) are examined in Fath al-Qadir with attention to the Hanafi ruling that it is permissible to give the entire zakah to a single category or even a single individual, and the ruling that zakah must be paid within the same region (the Hanafi default) unless there is a greater need elsewhere.

On sawm, Ibn al-Humam follows Al-Hidayah's treatment of the fast of Ramadan, its obligatory nature established by the Quran (Surah al-Baqarah 2:185), and the conditions that make it obligatory: Islam, puberty, mental soundness, ability, and — for women — being free from menstruation. The fast requires the intention (niyyah) to be made before Fajr each night for each day's fast, in contrast to the Maliki position which allows a single intention for the entire month.

The acts that break the fast in the Hanafi school are analyzed in detail. They fall into two categories: those that require both expiation (kaffarah) and making up the day (qada), and those that require qada only. The kaffarah for deliberately breaking the fast without excuse is one of the most severe in Islamic law: freeing a slave, or fasting sixty consecutive days, or feeding sixty poor people. Ibn al-Humam examines the hadith basis for this ruling carefully, including a thorough analysis of the famous hadith of the man who broke his fast in Ramadan.